The Alpha Who Burned My Pack And Killed My Pup

Three months into my pregnancy, I was poisoned by my mate's mistress, resulting in a miscarriage that left me unable to bear children.

That same day, I strangled her with my own hands.

My mate, William Ward, Gamma of the Ward Pack, has hated me ever since. He locked me away in a secluded cabin for three long years.

Three years later, he brought a frail child back from the pack’s outpost and told me to raise him.

He said the child’s name was Ryan Ward, the son of a seamstress from the outpost.

As I looked at the thin, obedient boy, my gaze flickered with realization.

William didn’t know that his beloved mistress, in her dying moments, had repeated one phrase over and over.

She had cried out:

“Ryan, my son…”

I couldn’t help but laugh, feeling for the first time in years a glimmer of hope.

==============================

When I strangled that mistress, her slender, pale neck had snapped like a fragile twig in the wind.

The fishing line I used left deep cuts on my hands, my blood mingling with hers, but I felt no pain—only a dark, twisted satisfaction.

Even three years later, whenever I dreamt of that moment, I’d wake up smiling.

That urge to experience it again grew stronger when Ryan arrived in my cabin three days ago.

“My Luna, your medicine.”

He knelt beside my bed, holding the bowl of medicine with both hands, his eyes cast down in deference.

The liquid was bitter, but I took the bowl and drank it without hesitation.

When William had brought him to my cabin, I’d been surprised.

He thought I didn’t know—that this was the child of his mistress.

He lied to me, claiming Ryan was the son of an unmarried seamstress, hoping I’d raise him and give him legitimacy.

He thought he could deceive me, but he didn’t realize I’d already lost my mind.

I’d gone mad the moment my child was taken from me.

These were the first words I spoke to Ryan in three days:

“Has your mother always lived at the outpost?”

Ryan froze, his head bowing even lower.

“I never knew my father. My mother raised me alone at the outpost since I was born.”

“Three years ago, she went out to gather herbs and fell off a cliff. She never came back.”

“They never found her body. Gamma William took pity on me and asked you to take me in.”

His words were meek, and they confirmed what I already knew.

He didn’t know his mother was a mistress. He didn’t know William was his father.

And he certainly didn’t know that I was the one who’d killed his mother, her body buried beneath the massive oak tree in the forest, feeding its roots day after day, year after year.

The irony was almost poetic. Did that woman ever imagine, when she poisoned me, that it would come to this?

I closed my eyes, threw the medicine bowl to the ground, and lunged at Ryan, my hands wrapping around his neck.

The porcelain shattered with a loud crash.

I pressed hard, and Ryan’s face turned red.

He was so obedient—so obedient that even in this moment, he didn’t struggle, his eyes wide but calm as I tried to end his life.

How could that wretched woman have raised such a good child?

If my child had lived…

If my child had lived!

“Die!” I screamed, pinning him to the ground, my hands tightening as that dark satisfaction surged through me again.

“Estelle!”

William’s voice rang out in panic, and a dart pierced my shoulder a second later.

I cried out in pain and collapsed, only to be met with William’s furious kick.

“You’re insane!”

He kicked the dart deeper into my shoulder, the pain so intense I nearly blacked out.

As I looked up at him, I felt a strange detachment, as if I were seeing a stranger.

This was my mate.

My grandfather, the Lycan King, had personally handed me over to him during our mark ceremony.

“Estelle! You lunatic!”

His eyes were bloodshot as he cursed me:

“A woman like you, dishonorable and unfaithful, doesn’t deserve to be the granddaughter of the Lycan King! You should die! Die! Die!”

William lost all control, not caring if he killed me, kicking me over and over until I was barely conscious.

“I… I’m sorry! It’s my fault! Gamma! Gamma!”

Ryan, who had just recovered his breath, suddenly threw himself between us.

For the first time in three days, he broke into tears, clutching William’s leg and sobbing:

“It’s my fault! All my fault, Gamma! Please, don’t hurt the Luna! Don’t hurt her!”

Hah. This child.